Broken Vessel
by AntebellumHope
Summary: A soft prayer had formed in my mouth before I was aware my lips were moving, only conscious of the fuzzy, disjointed sensation of hands deep within my numb body that fingered my entrails, discarding the tears leaking from between closed lashes.


The walls were white and the sheets were white, and I was sure that if I looked over the white bed rails, the linoleum tile would be white, too. Even the pallid noonday sun blinding me streamed in through white blinds. It was annoying really, how perfectly white the room was. I was hoping one of the many people running around trying to make the room _more _perfect would leave a blue cap or sock behind, just to give me something interesting to look at. The white streams of light moved as a breeze blew in, filling the room with the ungodly stench of city smog.

"Leave it." I snapped at the man trying to shut out the grimy air.

"But miss, you need -"

"I said, 'Leave it.' It doesn't bother me." On the contrary, it was nice to have something _normal_ in the room.

The man shifted his gaze to one of the others, who had unceremoniously stuck my arm three times without warning. She shrugged and both left the room in silence. Their absence opened up the cramped space a little, though with three and half warm bodies still occupying the quarters, the cloying atmosphere was less than comfortable. I watched them as they nimbly worked around my bed, placing a pan and a bucket in the floor and showing me all the shiny little buttons that would tell someone if I moved against medical advice. This one could raise and lower the bed, that one monitored my sole heartbeat. I swallowed hard as I studied the infernal machine. A neon green wave pattern steadily rose and fell in time with my pulse and flashed out meaningless numbers. The pallor of my skin and the window and the anemic sunlight was reflected back at me as I turned my head away from the mockery of the half-body I had become.

Did I understand all that had been said to me? Honestly, no. Did I need anything else? I threw my shoulders up then down in a dismissive gesture and flopped onto my side, only letting a few strong sobs out when the door clicked shut behind them.

~*.*~

My fingers were trembling as I held the test in front of me, blinking once, twice, thrice to clear away any early morning fog that was playing with my vision. Two solid lines blinked back at me each time, pink, strong, hopeful. An odd pain stole across my face, and I realized that I literally had stretched my grin from ear to ear.

"Babe? You still in there?"

The knock startled me, and the door swung open at the frightened screech I issued. He looked utterly...comical as he came to my rescue. His t-shirt was askew, hanging off one shoulder and exposing the hard sinew laden with scars, and crumpled from sleep, and his checkered boxers were twisted at what looked to be a decidedly painful (and nearly inappropriate) angle. Raven strands of hair were flattened against one side of his head, and the red lines from his pillow gave him an interesting 'beard.' His fists were clenched so tight that I feared a small line of blood would wind around his nails at any moment, and wide eyes the color of dusk looked me up and down, demanding to know what on earth had needed him to kick the door off its hinges.

I let my hearty laughter ring off the small space as I threw myself into his surprised arms. "We're pregnant!"

"We're…?" He mutely echoed, trying to process my words. I ran my fingers through his hair and pulled his face close, inhaling his scent and letting my lips play with his in just the right way.

"We're going to have a baby," I whispered breathily against his skin.

I felt his mouth moving under mine when he smiled before a sensation of weightlessness added to the vertigo of being twirled in one too many circles. He broke free for a moment to let loose a hearty "Yes!" before hoisting me into his arms and carrying me back over the bedroom threshold. The mattress squeaked under our bodies as he lay me down tenderly, afraid any jarring movement would break the precious cargo within. I allowed him the pleasure of burning kisses in a trail down my neck and pulling my body fast against his. Smiling, a drew a lazy circle with my finger across the back of his hand, which rested protectively on the lower part of my abdomen.

He nuzzled his scratchy face against the nape of my neck and moaned, "I love _both_ of you so much."

~*.*~

The movement of the bunk beneath me caused me to reel in my thoughts and put my expression into neutral before he could guess where they roamed. His hand carefully spread across my stomach as he tucked his legs a little closer to mine. I knew I was shaking when the white hand that held fast to the rail banged it against the mattress.

The thick accent was harsh in my ear. "We're gonna be alright."

I said nothing, just pressed my face a little harder into the white pillowcase to wipe off the tears. If he hadn't been there, I might have just kept my face pushed into it until I stopped breathing. I sniffed as I felt him shuffle around so that he could lay his hot cheek against my own. His fingers combed through my hair, untangling knots that had been bred from days of indifferent existence, and as unwelcome as the gesture was, I knew 'comforting' me was his first and sometimes only way of making sense of the grief. And I just didn't have the energy to shove him away.

I watched the sun trek across the sky and move the shadows in the room, thankfully shattering the pristine atmosphere. Grey and black contours peppered the stark quarters and highlighted the harsh inhuman monitors. The wind scattered small pebbles and other debris across rooftops below, and slowly, the maddeningly perfect day was consumed in twilight. Relishing in the ruins and forgetting the broken vessel that was my unfortunate property was made all the more difficult from the cosseting strokes weaving from my shoulder to my hip. His hand stilled at my navel, a favorite move of mine, and I hated myself for the pleasurable twang that shot up my spine. He had no reaction to the jolt, and it was quickly decided that the longer I could lay still, the easier it would be to block out the satiating curl of his fingers.

Clearing my throat of the watery moan threatening to spill over my lips, I ground out, "Would you please…"

And when I turned to face him, I found nothing but empty space behind me. I patted the wrinkled white sheets and found them cool, undisturbed for quite a while. My face still held the flush of heat from his presence, brows furrowed together in confusion. I rubbed the sleep from my face and sat up, freezing as a gentle touch traced my shoulder blade.

_Plop._ The sheet he had pulled over me stopped moving.

Sighing, I glanced down my midsection where the cover had pooled. My legs scissored quickly and knocked the blankets into the floor, exposing the moist skin of my thighs and calves to the midnight air. Against my better judgment, I lay my hand back across the flesh just under my breasts and pressed hard, searching for the light _thump thump_ of an immature heart. A soft prayer had formed in my mouth before I was aware my lips were moving.

"Please, God, I just want to feel my baby's heartbeat…"

~*.*~

"…"

"Just hold on…"

"I have been! Where's the…?"

"Sshhh!" I moved his hand over the subtle curve of my abdomen and paused when the faint pulsing sensation pushed against our interwoven fingers. "Do you feel it?"

He kept silent for a moment, pupils dilating in amazement. "Yeah. Whoa." Baby blue eyes peered up at me curiously. "Is that the heart?"

I laughed, remembering asking my own mother the same question when we were awaiting the arrival of my sister. "No, it's just hiccups."

His brows made quite a good effort to leap off his face. _"Hiccups?"_

"Mmhm. They practice breathing and swallowing and can get hiccups just like we can."

His calloused hands passed gently over the tender flesh. "Can't wait to meet the lil' dude or dudette."

Smiling, I pulled the ends of the shirt tucked under my slightly engorged bust line as close to their proper place as I could get them. Though not large or pronouncedly round (not yet, at least), my clothes were less and less willing to fit properly as the days passed. I stood and gritted against the mild discomfort that surfaced when I had been sitting for too long. The faint cramps always started out low in the small of my back before migrating to the muscles just above my right acetabulum.

"Something wrong?" Eerily perceptive cocoa eyes locked on to the slight grimace as I moved my hand the opposite shoulder, pulling my obliques into a good stretch.

I shook my head and mentally squared my posture, determined not to cave to the sticking pain in front of them. "Nothing. I just need to move around a bit."

The corner of his mouth twitched in displeasure, and though I knew my answer had earned me a second (and third and fourth and fifth) shadow, I lithely stepped around them and into the bathroom. I left the door open as I patted my face with cold water, hoping to relieve the press of summer heat. The dull throbbing was sharpening its focus and moving deeper into my center mass. I inhaled slowly and felt my heart ricochet off my thoracic cavity as a scent like corroded iron stewing in a brackish mire reached my nostrils. A rivulet of crimson spread eagerly over my sweatpants as I stumbled backwards, panicking when I realized that the words I needed couldn't get past my weak throat.

My eyes were inexplicably drawn to the faint fluorescent lightbulb in the cavernous ceiling of the large main room as I mutely swayed on my feet, my last conscious thought to land on the slab of concrete with the fleshy part of my hands, and the world suddenly shattered into a helix of fireworks and ghosts.

~*.*~

"_...was that?"_

"_Are...okay?"_

Fuzzy, disjointed phrases drifting in and out of my mind unchecked as night fell and nightmares went on the prowl, whispering sweet nothings to assuage the guilt.

"_She's bleed...! Why is...eeding?"_

"_Call...bulance...m'scarriag…"_

Fuzzy, disjointed memories of eyes like embers from a fire, like granite from a quarry, like waves from the deepest ocean trench all above me, shaking and swearing with foreign terror and helplessness.

"_What about...aby?"_

"_...hemorrhag...oo late…"_

Fuzzy, disjointed sensations of hands deep within my numb body, fingering my entrails and removing the offending tissue that was both my life and my death, discarding the tears and smeared mascara leaking from between closed lashes.

"_I...sorry...wife...be alrigh…"_

"_No...won't…"_

Fuzzy, disjointed pictures kept hidden under the cool side of the pillow crushed in my hand, looking at me now with a preternatural smile that promised to stay nestled in my breast and stave off the dark musings. The shearing of woven paper was intensified by the press of night, and I froze, waiting, almost wanting, for someone to barge in on the gross transgression. Bit by bit I uncoiled from the defensive crouch and pulled and tugged at the deceitful grin until grainy pieces of once precious images lay at my feet.

And finally alone, I slept the sleep of the dead.

~*.*~

Dedicated to all the angels who bypassed Earth on their way to Heaven.

~*.*~

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **I tried not to use any of their names outright, but I really hope that I didn't confuse anyone too badly. I know that the pronouns 'he,' 'his,' and 'him' can be applied to ninety percent of the canon characters, but I'm hoping that their actions/words/descriptions will distinguish one from the other.

And yes, loyal turtle fans, I know that in the current issue of comics, Casey and April have a child named Shadow. I'm taking some creative liberty (as most authors of fan fiction do) and setting this somewhere between two and five years before Shadow's birth.

I was first inspired to write something like this from hearing how a former coworker of mine, only in her early twenties, lost two babies before having her beautiful little girl. I wrote this oneshot hoping to get a better handle on building suspense and playing with the reader's emotions, which is probably one of the tougher technical issues for an author to tackle. I would really enjoy feedback on this specific aspect of my writing, as well as anything you wish to say about the work itself.

As always, please let me hear your thoughts! With a great, big, and somewhat sappy loveyameanit to all those readers and reviewers who have stuck with me! :D


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